Vaccines Side Effects & Ingredients

What are the risks associated with vaccines?

Every year the Centers for Disease Control receives about 30,000 reports of vaccine reactions. About 2000 of these adverse reactions are categorized as serious, causing a prolonged hospital stay, a permanent disability, or death. The following side effects are listed in the vaccine manufacturer’s Product Insert or the CDC Vaccine Information Statements. Additionally, the ingredients can be found detailed in the Product Inserts.

Ingredients in the vaccine include: Hepatitis B surface antigen (the proteins on the outer shell of the virus), aluminum (250 micrograms), saline, yeast proteins, phosphate, and formaldehyde (depending on brand).

*All 3 doses are now mandated for Kindergarten school entry in California.

The brand names are Recombivax HB and Engerix-B. Hepatitis B vaccine is also in the combination brand Pediarix.

DTaP Vaccine

The CDC recommends 5 doses of DTaP vaccine (Diphtheria, Tetanus, acellular Pertussis) are given between 2 months and 5 years of age. A 6th dose of this vaccine is recommended at age 12 as the Tdap vaccine.

Ingredients in the vaccine include: sugars from the Hib germs bonded to either tetanus toxoid or meningococcal proteins (to help induce a better immune response), aluminum (225 micrograms in the Merck brand only), saline, sucrose or lactose sugar, and formaldehyde.

Brand names are ActHIB, PedvaxHIB, and Hiberix. Hib vaccine is also in the combination Pediacel.

Ingredients in the vaccine include: the three live viruses (the rubella virus was harvested from an infected aborted baby back in the 1960s), saline solution, sugar, gelatin, synthetic albumin proteins (was human blood albumin until 2007), cow fetus serum, neomycin (antibiotic), chick embryo proteins, proteins and DNA from the human fetal lung cells used to nourish the viruses during manufacturing.

Brand name is MMR II. MMR vaccine is also in the combination ProQuad.

Varicella (chicken pox) Vaccine

The CDC recommends 2 doses of chicken pox vaccine at 1 and 5 years of age. (It is also given to the elderly as the shingles vaccine).

An additional side effect reported during initial safety studies of the shingles vaccine in the elderly is a 10 to 25% higher rate of heart failure or heart attack within one month of vaccination compared to placebo.

Ingredients in the vaccine include: the live virus, sucrose, saline, gelatin, MSG, potassium, DNA and proteins from the human fetal cells used to nourish the virus during manufacturing, EDTA, Neomycin, and fetal cow serum.

(There are over a dozen different brands of injected flu vaccine and detailing exact ingredients for each is beyond the scope of this section). The ingredients most commonly utilized in the majority of flu vaccines include: 3 to 4 strains of flu viruses which are killed and split open, saline, egg proteins, formaldehyde, mercury (in about half of the flu vaccines, those that come in a 10-dose vial), and antibiotics. In addition, every flu vaccine contains three or four of the following chemicals: octoxynol-10, Polysorbate 80, Polysorbate 20, sodium deoxycholate, octylphenol ethoxylate, betapropiolactone, nonylphenol ethoxylate, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, sodium taurodeoxycholate, MF59 (a squalene-based adjuvant), sorbitan trioleate, barium, and Triton X-100.